Difference for me is that I can boot fine until xdm starts gdm and loads the nvidia kernel module.

As stated there I can't startx with "Discrete Graphics"-mode turned on in Bios. Integrated Intel graphics works fine, but I can't use any external monitors what's the expected behaviour. As I really need more than the laptop display sometimes, I'm trying hard to get the nvidia gpu running. I'm pretty sure that my kernel is configured correctly as I triple checked the settings from the nvidia guide.

What I already tried:

- various Bios settings (hyperthreading on/off, intel virtualization on/off, optimus on/off, optimus os detection on/off, disable everything I can even mouse / trackpoint)
- Bios update to newest version (Version 1.08 UEFI: 1.08 / ECP: 1.06)
- different kernel parameters: irqpoll, irqfixup, nox2apic, pci=usepirqmask, acpi_os_name="Microsoft Windows", acpi=off, acpi=noirq, nolapic, noapic and even some more I think that I found as suggestions to solve nvidia optimus problems.
- remove 8gb of the 16gb ram I have as someone wrote in some bugtracker it could be an issue with 16gb of ram

The only kernel parameter that allowed me to boot into x is "acpi=noirq" all other tries didn't have an effect. The downside without irq is (again as said already in the other thread) I lose multicore and hyperthreading and my system runs terribly slow : /

Some informations that may help:

cat /proc/interrupts (discrete graphics mode):

Code:

SEE MY 3RD POST PLEASE

dmesg shows that the graphic card should be on irq 17 but as loading the kernel module fails and results in a completely turned off screen black screen (no backlight) it doesn't appear in the above listing I think.

Yesterday I gave the the xorg-server release candidate a shot and installed version 1.12.99.905 in combination with mesa 8.0.4 or 8.0.4-r1

I spent hours searching around the net for a solution and tried everything I found. Many ubuntu users say they just turn on discrete graphics mode, disable os detection and intel virtualization stuff in bios and install the proprietary driver and it works for them. How can that be?

If you need any more input from me let me know.

I'm really stuck and can't believe there is no solution : /

Cheers
Alex

Last edited by opn on Wed Sep 19, 2012 10:30 pm; edited 3 times in total

- Showing an xorg.conf with dri disable and a xorg.log with dri enable
- Showing an interrupt list with irq 9 in use and a dmesg with a free irq 9 same for intel_hda that is MSI enable and your log show it has been stop.

I would say first, disable devices in your bios for trying, specially the snd_hda that take irq17 (same as your nvidia as you said) and have trouble with MSI in your log. (by devices i'm not speaking about any cpu features, just devices that take irq)
I would remove/unload vboxdrv too. And re-enable virtualization cpu feature in your bios. Re-read nvidia doc for feature, you are still using xorg opengl in your log.

Try to produce something coherent or with some kind of logic instead of a random infos from your many tries. We are blind, and anytime you will change something your previous infos gaven goes outdate and may even drive us in bad path as we couldn't guess you've made any change.

Sorry for that. I have tons of text files from the tries and must have gotten confused. Wasn't my intention to post such a crap : / I'll give it another try tomorrow and edit the post then with updated, coherent and new informations as I've got no time left today to give it another shot.

Regarding the snd_hda on irq 17: I think I can't deactivate it. There are plenty of switches for all kinds of devices but none for the onboard audio. I've just searched around a bit and it seems there really is no Bios switch to turn it off. Will it be enough to just remove the snd_hda kernel modules?

Bios:
- Disabled every device I can, except ethernet so that I can still ssh into the system to provide the informations. I also disabled the virtualization stuff to be sure it's not the cause for the problem. (I enabled it one time to check if it'll work then but it didn't)
- Discrete Graphics Mode, disabled OS detection

Kernel: 3.5.3-gentoo
- without snd_hda_intel configured to be sure it's not sitting on irq 17 (that seems to have worked, see interrupts)
- removed all intel hd configurations to be sure it's not somehow interfering
- checked http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/nvidia-guide.xml again, everything was set correct and I'm using uvesafb

I posted on the other thread you mentioned, have this same issue. After some digging it appears that there are more people with other notebook/video card models who experience the same issue when switching to discrete on the BIOS.

I would be all for using Optimus via Bumblebee here, but that one doesn't work either (in some of my tries, I even saw an Xorg.X.log message saying that the video card was not recognized, and I have the latest NVIDIA blob drivers). Could you try and see if you can get bumblebee running? The relevant ebuilds are in sabayon's overlay. I think maybe these two problems (black screen unless acpi=noirq AND bumblebee not working) are related._________________GERÓNIMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

What bothered me is that when I tried with Ubuntu, Bumblebee was running flawlessly.

I have tried to mimic Ubuntu's environment, the only thing I did not get to do was to downgrade X to 1.12 or 1.11 (I don't know which one 12.04 uses). However, no success, even with kernel-3.2 _________________GERÓNIMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Then welcome to my world xD I've managed (with the help from the guys at #bumblebee on Freenode) to narrow it down to that same thing. You can join #bumblebee if you like, at least now there'll be two of us with that issue xD.

Next thing I'm going to try when I have some time is booting with an Ubuntu liveusb and see if the problem persists in there._________________GERÓNIMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Frack my life. I just booted with an Ubuntu 12.04 amd64 livecd and the GPU works.

Ok, it's an old driver and right now I'm trying to get the latest since it recognizes my card as a Quadro 1100M instead of a K100M, but at least nvidia-xconfig -query-gpu-info is not bailing out, and I have no "GPU has fallen off the bus" errors. (EDIT: tried with current from x-swat PPA. Version is 304.43. It works)

kernelOfTruth, it depends on the laptop manufacturer and how gentle they are with BIOS settings and how the GPUs are hardwired to the external ports. In the case of the Thinkpad W530, the VGA is attached to the iGPU and the miniDP is attached to the dGPU. Also, the Thinkpad BIOS lets you choose between booting on the iGPU, the dGPU, or Optimus. If you choose to boot on Optimus, there are some people who managed to connect 2 external monitors (one on the VGA, one on the miniDP) and make them work all together using xrandr/xinerama/synergy. I have not tested that sadly as I don't have spare external monitors at home. Here's one of the links though: http://zachstechnotes.blogspot.com.ar/2012/01/tri-head-display-on-linux-thinkpad-w520.html_________________GERÓNIMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!